The Odd Life of Timothy Green
Ok, I was really excited to see this movie because of the cast and crew. No, this really isn’t normally my kind of flick, but sometimes you just want something different than what you usually like. I love Peter Hedges previous work on Dan in Real Life, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and About A Boy. I think he is an excellent writer and an OK director. Then I found out that Ahmet Zappa came up with the story for this feature and I knew that I needed to see this movie as soon a possible. So with a pedigree like this was it a good movie? Maybe…but first…
A Synopsis.
After receiving bad news from a fertility doctor, Cindy and Jim Green try to bury their dreams of having a child by writing out all the great traits their child would have and putting them in a box in the garden. During a freak storm in the middle of the night, they awake to find a boy named Timothy, with leaves growing from his ankles, standing in their kitchen calling them mom and dad. Cindy and Jim are thrown into the midst of parenthood and over the coming months, Timothy will teach them more than they could have imagined about being parents and raising a child, no matter how he comes into their lives.
I’m going to say this now to get it out of the way, my eyes welled up at the end of the movie a little…someone from the badass association that I belong to called me shortly after and told me to quit being a girl. Regardless of how this movie made me feel was it good? Yeah, I guess I didn’t dislike it in any way majorly. I’ve kinda had it with Dianne Wiest’s acting, and the entire movie was very predictable but I was expecting that.
Now on to things that were awesome.
M. Emmet Walsh is one of my cinematic heroes and it is great to see he still has something left in the tank, although it was a bit limited. I may catch some flack with this next statement but I have yet to dislike a Joel Edgerton performance. This guy can really act, I’ve seen him in a number of films the past few years and her is always amazing, no change here.
The story and direction are good enough to get us through the feature with out any major complaints. It was all kind of bland and predictable using setups we have seen a hundred times before.
Thankfully there are plenty of special features to expand your knowledge of the film.
- An audio commentary with the director is easily the best feature and token featurette that pats the crew and actors on each other’s backs called “This is Family.”
- There are also six deleted scenes and a music video for a song called the Gift.
Overall this was a nice film.
It really is that nice or it just seems that way compared to the cynical films I usually watch. That makes this film feel like a past era. And this film will be refreshing for anyone looking for a heartfelt movie that is very easy to watch.
The Odd Life of Timothy Green (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo)
Ratings are based on a 5-star scale
Overall: 3.5 goals kicked in the wrong goal out of 5
Review by Bro’ B – Ben
We received product to facilitate this review. All opinions are our own.
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